Google's answer to Apple's HealthKit has arrived. Today the company launched its Google Fit app for Android. Much like Apple's solution, Fit offers a central place to monitor your health goals and workout stats. When used as a standalone health tracker, the app will monitor your walking, running and cycling, Google says. Goals based on duration or total steps can be established, with Fit keeping you aware of your progress throughout each day. But third-party fitness trackers and apps can also tap into Google's platform and input your health data. What remains to be seen is whether Android's HealthKit rival can avoid the rocky start that Apple endured with the rollout of iOS 8. Right off the bat, Google Fit is compatible with every Android Wear device on the market. And you can also access your health profile via the web and on tablets — a decent feature if you plan on carrying a Nexus 9 to the gym to pass the time while you're on the treadmill. Google Fit is a free download in the Play Store and is rolling out right now.

There have been rumors of an actual Apple television ever since Steve Jobs told his biographer that he'd "cracked" the interface problem, but it's never been anywhere close to reality — you can't make a successful TV without actual TV programming, and that getting that programming has usually meant you have to plug in a cable or satellite box. It doesn't matter who builds your TV if you're forced to use Comcast's cable box; you'll never see Apple's interface anyway. (Or Google's, or Microsoft's, or whatever — every company that's tried to attack the TV market by replacing or hacking the cable box has quickly failed, often in spectacular fashion.)

It's only been a week since Apple Pay made its debut, but apparently the launch has been successful thus far. Speaking at the WSJD Live event, hosted by The Wall Street Journal, Cook said that Apple is already the leader in "contactless" payments, "more than the total of all the other guys." Within 72 hours, Apple apparently activated one million cards, and we presume it's only gone up significantly since then. Customer response, has been positive, as well. "I'm getting flooded with emails from customers," Cook said. "It's sort of that 'ahh' moment — you use the phone and it's all you have to do." Unsurprisingly, Cook is already using Apple Pay himself — he said he used it at Whole Foods, but didn't say what potentially overpriced delicacies he purchased.

Microsoft introduced new trackpad gestures in Windows 8, but the company is expanding them further with the upcoming release of Windows 10. In a keynote speech at TechEd Europe today, Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore demonstrated new trackpad features that will soon be available to Windows 10 testers. "In the past touch pads on Windows have really been done very differently because OEMs do them," explained Belfiore. Microsoft introduced precision trackpads with the help of Intel in Windows 8 to improve the hardware situation, and now the focus is on gestures in software. "With Windows 10 we’re adding support for power users in a touch pad, where multiple finger gestures — which all of you power users learn — can make you really efficient."